Striking a golf ball on a fairway often causes a divot. This is because a golf club iron, or fairway wood, or other golf club, when swung properly, impacts with the ball while the golf club head is descending and thus a chunk of earth and dirt is taken at or about the area of where the ball is struck from. Therefore golf driving mats are generally constructed with an artificial turf like material that has some elasticity to deflect downward, and absorb much of the impact of the golf cub and gives the golfer the sensation of taking a divot from the natural playing surface However, golf or golfing mats are not always suitable for a golfer to practice from. Often a golfer seeks to practice hitting golf balls or swing making practice swings in his own back yard or on a grass area that he or she does not want to take divot from when he or she strikes downwardly on the ball and through and into the ground below. Prior golf ball mats are heavy and expensive and if a mat is not used, the scarring of the lawn caused by the golf club's divot action makes such areas expensive to maintain due to the constant need to fill in the divot holes with soil and replant the grass. In addition, existing driving mats and ball support surfaces are often unsightly both when they are placed on a lawn and after they are moved from the lawn when considering that they often smother and kill the grass below the mat when the mat is left in place for more than a day or two.
Furthermore, if a golfer sets a conventional golf tee in his lawn and proceeds to impact it with his golf club while practicing swinging, he is liable to, on occasion, miss the tee and hit the lawn instead. This would likely cause the head of the golf club to gouge a divot out of the lawn. The golf ball tee is also likely to fly off when impacted by a golf club head, and thus the golfer would have to bend over and replace the tee every time it flies away. There is a need for substantial improvements to overcome such problems.
There are various devices known in the prior art for golfing mats. U.S. Pat. No. 7,549,932 to Miyamoto, incorporated by reference herein, discloses a flexible sheet 10 having a mid portion 10d which can be downwardly deflected during swinging of a golf club head to strike a golf ball. (Miyamoto, Col. 2, Ins. 24-48, FIG. 2). U.S. patent application number 2008/0032811 to Bearden, incorporated by reference herein, discloses a beam 20 suspended over a void 12, such that a middle portion 24 of the beam 20 deflects downward when a golf club 70 drives the middle portion 24 downward. (Bearden, paragraphs 18-19). Bearden also discloses a plurality of short studs 8, which inhibit the apparatus 1 from sliding along the ground. (Bearden, pg. 2, paragraph 17, FIG. 4)